


The Lothal Job

by LibraryMage



Series: Leverage Rebels AU [1]
Category: Leverage, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Autistic Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Heist fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-08 03:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8828986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: The Leverage crew is drawn into the Rebellion when a woman contacts them asking for help in finishing her sister's mission.Part of the Leverage Rebels AU.





	1. Chapter 1

The dark-skinned woman who sat across from them was jumpy, glancing over her shoulder at the slightest sign of movement behind her.  Which, considering they were in a bar, meant she was in near-constant motion.

“It’s okay, Dalya,” Sophie said.  “You can talk here.”

“I'm sorry,” she said.  “It just, these past few days have been --”

“We understand,” Nate said.  “Just start from the beginning.”

“My sister, Adva, was an engineer in the Imperial complex,” she said.  “Five days ago, she was killed.”

Dalya stopped talking and took a long sip of her drink as if trying to calm her nerves.  Nate and Sophie waited silently for her to continue.

“She was placed there to pass information to the rebels here in the Outer Rim.”  Dalya’s voice was quiet and her eyes darted around, as if she was looking out for anyone who may have been watching the three of them.  “She got caught trying to get access to the skeleton key.  It’s supposedly they key to cracking multiple Imperial ciphers.  If the rebels got their hands on it, it would be a game changer.”

Nate and Sophie exchanged a quick glance.  They knew all the rumors and whispers of groups of rebels and insurgents and freedom fighters throughout the galaxy, but any talk of a larger, organized rebellion had been unsubstantiated up to this point.

“The man who killed her was an ISB analyst who got on her trail,” Dalya continued.  “She knew he was onto her, but she went back in anyway because the mission was just that important.  She gave me enough warning that I was able to get her wife and kids off Lothal, but --”

She broke off and looked over her shoulder yet again as the door opened.

“We can take care of him,” Sophie said.  “It won't make it safe for her family to come back to Lothal, but we can get justice for what happened to her.”

“It’s not just that,” Dalya said.  “She never got what she was after.  Look, I wouldn’t be here if I was desperate, but she was right.  Her mission is too important.  It can't go unfinished.  I have no one else to turn to who can get that key.”

“Don’t worry,” Sophie said, laying her hand on Dalya’s arm and giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze.  “We’ll do it.  Your sister died for this, and we’ll make sure it wasn’t in vain.”

* * *

 

The sound of raised voices greeted Eliot as he walked up the ramp onto the ship.  They weren’t yelling, exactly, but there was an unusually loud discussion going on.

“What’s going on?” he asked, spotting Hardison and Parker sitting in the common space that doubled as their briefing room, both uncharacteristically quiet, probably trying to listen to the argument.

“Mom and Dad are fighting,” Hardison said.

“Who’s winning?”

“Who d’you think?” Parker asked, pressing herself closer to Hardison so Eliot could sit on her other side.

“Sophie told the client we’d take the job,” Hardison said as Eliot took the spot Parker had made for him.

“Since when is that a problem?” Eliot asked.  Nate was the one who picked the jobs they took, with few exceptions, but he and Sophie were usually on the same page.

“Since we’d be breaking into a high-security Imperial facility,” Parker said.  As Hardison explained to Eliot the details about the skeleton key and the death of their client’s sister, Parker shut her eyes so she could hear Nate and Sophie better.  Suddenly they snapped open again.

“She won him over,” she said.

“You sure?” Hardison asked.  He could still hear them arguing.  It sure didn’t sound like Nate agreed with Sophie yet.

Parker nodded.

“You know Nate,” Eliot said.  “He’s gotta pretend to keep disagreeing to make a point.”

Hardison rolled his eyes, knowing Eliot was right.  Even as he did so, the voices of the older two crew members quieted down.  A moment later, they entered the room and Nate’s eyes fell on the three of them.  He sighed.

“Yes, we’re taking the job.”

“I don’t like this,” Eliot said.

“Neither do I,” Nate said.  “But Sophie was…convincing.”

Eliot, Parker, and Hardison could all see Sophie roll her eyes.  Of course Nate wasn’t about to say the words “Sophie was right.”

“You sure she didn’t just use one of her Jedi mind tricks on you?” Hardison joked.  Nate looked over his shoulder at Sophie, as if he was actually considering that possibility.

“Oh, you know I didn’t,” Sophie said, gently swatting his shoulder.

“Either way, we’re taking this job,” Nate said.  “I take it you three were listening in on the details?”

“Me and Hardison were,” Parker said, completely unashamed.  “And Hardison told Eliot.”

“Great,” Nate said.  “Hardison, run it.”

Hardison hit a button on the cuff on his wrist that held the controls for the briefing room.  The lights dimmed and schematics of a building appeared on the screen across from them.

“This is the main communications building in the Imperial complex,” Hardison said.  “These plans are old, but they're what I could get from my source.  They lock this stuff down pretty tight.  Assuming this skeleton key exists --”

“It does,” Eliot said.  Hardison glanced over his shoulder, silently inviting the other man to elaborate on exactly how he was so sure.  He didn’t.  Of course not.  Hardison turned back to Nate.

“The most direct way to get it would be to access it through the main servers in the facility, right here,” he said.  Another click of a button and a room on the schematics lit up green.  “Problem is, I’d need time to find it.  It’s not like I can just copy all the data off the Imperial network.  This only works if I have a precise target or a lot of time.”

“Parker?” Nate asked.

The blonde winced as she looked at the plans on the screen.  They were old, and definitely out of date, meaning lots of variables they couldn’t account for.  The security they _could_ account for…well, it was the Empire.  They didn’t exactly slack off on that front.

“It’d take at least a week to prep,” she said.  “And we’d need someone on the inside.  We can't risk Eliot being and IDed and Hardison --”

She stopped herself before she could say what she was thinking.  _Hardison is terrible undercover._   Besides, who went where and did what was Nate’s job to think about, not hers.  Her job wasn’t to worry about what the others could do, it was to answer the question _can you get inside?_

“Bare minimum, the main servers are behind reinforced blast doors with at least four guards stationed outside,” she continued.  “The doors are alarmed so anyone who tries to get in without the right clearance sets off a red alert that triggers a lockdown.  Hallway leading up to it has cameras every three feet.  Best guess for the actual server room is pressure sensors in the floor and cameras covering every inch.”

“Isn’t that just a little overkill?” Sophie asked.

“It’s the Empire,” Eliot said.  “These guys practically invented overkill.”

“It can be done,” Parker said, ignoring her friends’ commentary.  “Just not on our timeframe or with our resources.  Even if I could get in _and_ get Hardison in with me, we’d be spotted and we’d never make it out.  And this is assuming they haven't increased their security recently, which they probably have thanks to all the rebel attacks.”

“We promised Dalya we’d finish her sister’s mission,” Nate said, using that tone he liked using to let them know there wasn’t a choice, that they _needed_ to finish the job.  “We have to get that key.  What’s rule number one, guys?”

“Don’t bring up a problem unless you have a fix,” Hardison said.  “And we might have one."

The schematics on the screen changed.

“This is an Imperial outpost outside of Jhothal,” he said.  “If I could access their servers, I could use that as a back door into the network and find the key from there.  Take it away, Parker.”

“Security there is a lot less tight,” Parker said.  “Still pretty good, but easy enough for us…well, for me.”

“Then that’s our way in,” Nate said.  “How much time do you need to prep?”

Parker let out a small laugh.  “I could crack this place in my sleep.”

“With Hardison?” Sophie asked.

“Okay, give me a day.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Alright,” Parker said.  “Perimeter patrol is gone.  We’re going in.”

She and Hardison were hidden among thick grasses that reached over six feet tall.  Between them and the fence lay 100 feet of open dirt, cleared of all plant life.  Parker beckoned for Hardison to follow as she made a dash for the blind spot she’d found.

“Ready?” she asked as they neared the fence.

“Ready,” Hardison said.  He was already gasping despite only running a short distance.

As he jumped, Parker shut her eyes and reached out with her mind.  She flung Hardison higher into the air, over the fence, where he’d land on the other side.  It was faster than waiting for him to climb it himself, and with the momentum he’d built up running, it was easier to throw him.  She heard a small shout as he fell.

 _Don’t get us caught,_ she thought.  She jumped, caught the top of the fence, and flipped over the edge to the other side.  She landed softly on her feet and spotted Hardison on the ground about a yard away.

“I was _not_ ready,” he said.

“Come on,” Parker whispered, grabbing her friend’s hand and pulling him up off the ground.

The two of them headed toward the single small building inside the compound, with Parker leading them to an isolated back entrance.  She silently motioned for Hardison to stay down.  He waited, crouched in a dark corner, out of view of the single guard post, while Parker went to work on the lock.

“Can’t you just, you know,” he moved his hand in a way that Parker guessed was supposed to mean unlocking the door using the Force.

“This is faster,” she whispered back.  Less than a second later, her statement was proven right as the lock clicked and the door opened.  She smiled as if to say “told you so” as the two of them entered the building.

They moved quietly down the hallway, Parker casting out a mental net, feeling for anyone coming their way.  She stopped in her tracks as she was suddenly hit with an uneasy feeling.

“I've got a bad feeling about this,” she said.

“What kind of bad feeling?” Hardison asked, his anxiety poking at Parker like a handful of needles.

“I don’t know,” she muttered, frustrated with her constant inability to put her feelings into words that made sense to her crewmates.  She shook her head.  “Let’s keep moving.”

They had almost made it to where the (admittedly old) schematics they’d planned their heist off of had said the main control room should be when they heard three sets of footsteps coming in their direction.  They ducked into the doorway of a room that was, thankfully, empty and waited, both of them holding their breath, as the Stormtroopers passed their hiding spot.

That uneasy feeling in Parker’s chest returned.  Didn’t they normally move in pairs?  And why did one of them feel so… _different_ from the others?

When the coast was clear, they resumed their trek down the hall.  They found the correct door and stopped outside of it.  Parker shut her eyes and listened, then pushed out with her mind, feeling for people on the other side of the door.  She held up one finger, silently letting Hardison know how many Stormtroopers were inside, and opened the door.

It took all of two seconds for the Stormtrooper to notice them.  They ducked to avoid the first round of blaster fire.  Hardison stood first and fired back, hitting the soldier in the chest with a stun blast.

“I’ll keep an eye out for more of them,” Parker said quietly, just in case anyone else was nearby.  “Do your thing.”

Hardison nodded and headed toward a computer terminal while Parker opened the door just a crack to watch for incoming Stormtroopers and cast out her mental net again.  She didn’t sense anyone approaching yet, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was really, really _wrong._

On a hunch, she looked back over her shoulder and saw a blinking light not far from where the Stormtrooper had been standing.

“Hardison,” she hissed, pointing at the light.  “Silent alarm.  We’ve got maybe 60 seconds.”

Hardison’s eyes widened.  “Not enough time,” he said.  “You go, I’ll do what I can.”

Parker shook her head.  “I'm not leaving.”

“It doesn’t make sense for us to both get caught,” Hardison said, still typing.  “I’ll get this started.  They catch me, you can come back and finish it.”

Parker didn’t like it, but it made sense.  Still, she waited for Nate or Sophie’s voice in her ear telling her no, giving her another plan that would work out better.  Nothing.  Why weren’t they saying anything?

“Fine,” she muttered.  As she slipped out the door, she could feel people coming down the hall from both sides.  She spotted another door, the same place she and Hardison had hidden earlier, and ducked inside again.  It was some kind of storage area.  She slowly backed away from the door, moving with her usual practiced silence.

She held her breath as she heard footsteps pass her hiding place, watching the shadows flicker past the small crack of light under the door.  She was watching so intently that she almost didn’t hear the small quiet scrape of metal against metal from behind her.  As she looked over her shoulder, the air vent in the ceiling swung open.

Parker didn’t even need to think before acting.  As someone dropped from the vent into the room, Parker pushed out, slamming them back into the wall.  She closed the small distance between them and pinned them against the wall with one hand.  It was then that she finally got a look at them.

“You’re not a Stormtrooper,” she said, taking a step back and releasing her hold on a dark-haired boy who couldn’t be that much older than she was.

“Neither are you, I'm guessing,” he said.

“So who are you?” Parker asked.

“You attacked me,” the boy said.  “I think that means you explain first.”

“I'm a thief,” Parker said, as if that actually explained anything.  She sighed when the kid crossed his arms and gave her a suspicious look.

“My friend and I broke in here to steal something,” she said.  “That’s all.  And since you’re crawling around in the air vents, I’m guessing that’s what you’re doing here, too.”

“You’re here for the key,” he said, his eyes getting a bit wider like he was putting the pieces of something together in his head.

“How do you know about the key?” Parker asked.

“I'm a thief, too,” the kid said.  Parker rolled her eyes.  She glanced at the door and saw that the shadows of people walking past the door had disappeared.

“Hardison,” she whispered.  No answer.  “Hardison, can you hear me?”  Still nothing.

“They’re jamming our comms,” she said.  That explained why Nate and Sophie hadn't said anything earlier.  She turned back to the blue-eyed boy.  “I'm getting my partner out of here.”

“They got my partner, too,” he said.  “I can’t leave without her, and you seem like you could use some help.”

“I can handle myself,” Parker said, suddenly annoyed with this kid.  “You sure you’re not the one who needs help?”

“I'm not the one who got myself caught.”

“I don’t get caught,” Parker said.  “My friend does, sometimes, but he’s not really a thief.”

“What if I help you find him and we get the key together?" the boy asked.  "Solves both our problems.”

Parker shifted uncomfortably.  This kind of decision should be up to Nate or Sophie, not her, but they couldn’t hear her right now.

“Why do you even want the key?” she asked, stalling for time while she thought through all the possible things that could go wrong if she worked with this stranger.  As she spun the problem in her head, she felt something _nudge_ against her mind and immediately knew it was him, trying to figure out something about her, probably trying to decide how honestly he should answer her question.  She pushed back.

“We’re finishing a mission for the Rebellion,” he said.  Parker stared at him, wondering if there was anyway he’d pulled that answer out of her head.

 _Tell him or don’t tell him,_ she told herself. _Either way you need to find Hardison._

“Looks like we’re on the same mission,” she said.  She sighed.  Nate and Sophie weren’t there to tell her what to do.  Time to make her decision.

“We probably have the key already,” she said.  “We can find our partners and get out together, or you can go after the key yourself, either way, I don’t really care, but why go after it if we’ve already got it?”

“Makes sense,” the boy said.  “You have a plan?”

“Yeah,” Parker said, looking up at the open air vent.  “I take it you’re not claustrophobic.”

* * *

 

Hardison heard a soft thud above him.  The Stormtrooper guarding him had obviously heard it too, because his hand went right toward his blaster.  Before he could draw it, the metal grate flew off the air vent and slammed into his helmet.  Parker dropped into the room.

“Really?” she muttered as the Stormtrooper stood up.  She grabbed the fallen grate off the floor and ran at him, slamming it into his head again, then ramming the edge into his gut.  As he doubled over in pain, she shoved him to the ground and threw all her strength behind a kick to his head.  He stopped moving.

Parker took off the Trooper’s helmet, snapped her fingers in front of his face, and lifted one of his eyelids.  As she checked him out, someone else dropped from the air vent, landing in front of Hardison.  The kid reached out with one hand and Hardison’s cuffs opened.  He flexed his aching wrists as he stood up.

“Yep, he’s down,” Parker said, turning to Hardison.  “Not dead, though.”

“Nice,” he said.  “Definitely in your top ten rescues.”

“You rank them?” Parker asked.

“No, I was being -- never mind,” Hardison said, shaking his head.  “Who’s this?”

“Right,” Parker said.  “Hardison, this is….  What’s your name?”

The kid hesitated before speaking.  “Ezra.”

“This is Ezra,” Parker said.  “He’s apparently here for the Skeleton Key, too.”

“Great,” Hardison said.  “Except I don’t have it.”

“Seriously?” Parker asked.

“They destroyed the drive I was copying it to,” Hardison said.  “Don’t think they figured out exactly what I was looking for, but now we’ve got nothing.”

“Great,” Parker muttered, scrambling to think of a new plan where they could get Ezra’s partner out of here, get the intel, and all get out.  And if that couldn’t happen, what was more important?  The key or the people?  Nate would say the key, Sophie would say the people.  But what did that matter when neither of them were here to call the shots?  She breathed a small sigh of relief as things clicked into place in her head.

“Okay,” she said, turning to Ezra.  “You have any idea where they're keeping your friend?”

“Sort of,” he said.  “I can’t tell you, but I can feel her.  Wherever she is, I can get us there.”

“Alright, you lead the way,” Parker said.  “Then we get out together and forget the key if we need to and come up with a new plan to get it.”

“Nate won't like it,” Hardison said.

“Nate isn’t here.”

Parker picked up the fallen Stormtrooper’s blaster and handed it to Hardison before turning back to Ezra.

“Let’s go get your friend.”


	3. Chapter 3

“This way,” Ezra said, turning left into another hallway.  “She’s not far.”

As the three of them dashed down the hall, someone came running around the corner from the other end, almost slamming into Ezra.

Hardison took one look at the multicolored armor and said “I take it this is her?”

“Yeah,” Ezra said.  “We were just coming to rescue you,” he explained to his teammate.

“You’re adorable,” she said.  She gestured to Parker and Hardison.  “Who are they?”

“I guess they're on our side.”

“You _guess_?” Hardison repeated.

Parker glanced over her shoulder, bouncing nervously on her toes as Ezra explained the situation to…she thought she heard him call her Sabine.  All her contingencies for this break-in had been built on the assumption that there would only be two of them, not four.

“The main control room should be back the way you just came,” Parker said.

Sabine shook her head.  “I was just there,” she explained.  “That whole side of the building’s locked down.  We’re not getting in there.”

“Parker?” Hardison asked.  Parked winced.  She’d had a feeling she would have to make this decision, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

“Like I said, we lose the key if we have to.”  She looked at Sabine and Ezra.  “If you two need an escape route, we have one.”

The two of them glanced at each other, then back at Parker and Hardison.

“We’re in,” Sabine said.  “What’s your plan?”

“They don’t have enough troopers to secure the entire perimeter,” she said.  “So we look for a weak point and run for it.”  It was a terrible plan, but jammed comms meant no backup, and two extra people whose skill sets were completely unknown to her meant anything stealthier was probably a bad idea.

“Sounds like a plan he’d come up with,” Sabine said, pointing to Ezra.

“Well, he’s not dead yet, is he?” Parker said.  “Come on.”

“Does she know where she’s going?” Sabine asked as they followed Parker down the hall.

“She’s got the plans for this place memorized,” Hardison told her.

Parker ignored their voices and led them through the halls to a side door, different than the way she and Hardison had entered.  She held out one hand to signal the others to stop.  She edged the door open and looked outside, counting in her head as she watched for Stormtroopers and searchlights.

“We’re gonna have to make a run for it,” she said.  “On my mark.”  She glanced back at Hardison.  “You good?”

Hardison nodded.

“Wait for it,” Parker said.  She stood perfectly still, counting down the seconds.  Four, three, two…

“Now,” she said, throwing the door open.  The four of them ran for the fence.  Parker reached out, ready to throw Hardison over it.  No way he could climb it in the time they had.

“Don’t bother,” Ezra said.  He drew his weapon, which Parker had assumed was a blaster, and flicked a switch on the side.  With a crackling _hiss_ , a glowing blue blade appeared.  In two quick movements, Ezra slashed a hole through the fence.

Unfortunately, the light had drawn the attention of a nearby patrol, and the four teens found themselves dodging a hail of blaster fire as they ran for cover.

As they reached the tall grasses, Parker grabbed Hardison’s hand so they wouldn’t get separated.

“Just a little farther and our comms should start working,” Hardison said.  Sure enough, in under a minute, they both heard Eliot’s voice, in that low growl he used when he was worried and trying to hide it under a few layers of anger.

“If they don’t check in in two minutes --”

“We’re here!” Parker said.

“Parker!” Eliot’s voice again.  “What in the --”

“Explain later!” she said.  “We’re on the north end of the compound and we need to get out.  And we picked up a couple extra people.”

“What?”  That was Nate.

“Explain later!” Parker repeated, shoving Hardison to the side as a blaster bolt just barely missed him.

“Got a lock on your location,” Eliot said.  “I'm on my way.  Meet me half a mile northeast of where you are now.”

“You okay to keep going?” Parker asked Hardison, shooting a look of concern at her friend.

He nodded.  “I'm good.”

It was only then that Parker thought to check on their new -- allies?  Whatever.  She slowed down her pace just a little to let them catch up.

“We’ve got a crewmate coming for us,” she said, using her free hand to point in the direction Eliot had indicated.  “You two okay to keep moving?”  Not that they had much of a choice with at least four Stormtroopers on their tail.

The two of them looked at each other, silently deciding whether they should actually follow two strangers now that they’d made their escape.

“We’re good,” Sabine finally said.

It took them only a few minutes to reach the spot Eliot had told them.  They didn’t dare stop, knowing the troopers following them could catch up at any moment.  Just as Parker thought Hardison was about to collapse, she saw a small cluster of boulders large enough that they almost reached the tops of the grass.

Parker led the way, scrambling up to the top of the largest rock, and helped Hardison up after her.  She dropped, lying flat on her stomach so any Stormtroopers would have a harder time spotting her, and motioned for the others to do the same.  They were too conspicuous up here, but they had to be ready to move the second Eliot showed up, and she could feel him approaching fast.

Sure enough, a small ship appeared in her line of sight just seconds later.

“He’s here,” she said.

As the ship, a small shuttle heavily modified for combat, which Hardison had named _Lucille_ , leveled off in front of them, the hatch opened.

Hardison went first, Parker giving him an extra push with the Force, just to make sure he made it.  He wasn’t exactly a leaper like her.  She motioned for Sabine and Ezra to go next.  Once they were safely on board, Parker followed.  For the half second she was in the air, the thoughts of Stormtroopers following them, of their failed mission, of the potential problems their new sort-of-allies could cause, all evaporated.  Then her feet hit solid metal and the world was real again.

She didn’t need to say anything for Eliot to know it was time to move.  The hatch pulled shut behind her and _Lucille_ sped off into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for brief mention of death

Parker bounced nervously on the balls of her feet as she stood near the hatch at the back of the ship.  She watched as Eliot stepped aside, letting Hardison take his usual spot in the pilot’s seat, and made his way over to her.  He gently put his hand on her arm, leading her to a corner as far from the two newcomers as it was possible to get in the tiny shuttle.

“What happened?” he asked, keeping his voice low so only Parker could hear him.

“Nate, Sophie, you listening?” Parker whispered.  When she heard the two oldest members of the team respond, she kept talking.

“They were ready for us,” she said.  “Those two kids, Sabine and Ezra, they broke in just before we did, so the Imps stepped up security and Hardison got caught.”

“And who exactly are Sabine and Ezra?” Nate asked.

“Thieves, I guess,” Parker said with a shrug.  “Not very good ones, though.  They said they were after the skeleton key, too.”

She shifted a little, making sure Eliot’s body was blocking any view of her face so Sabine and Ezra couldn’t see what she was saying.

“There’s something else,” she said, dropping her voice even lower.  “I think Ezra might be a Jedi.  A real one.”

“How can you tell?”  That was Sophie.  Her voice had something in it, like she was trying not to sound too interested when obviously she was.

“I don’t know,” Parker said, flapping her hands anxiously.  “I just...have this feeling.  I can’t --”  She bit the inside of her cheek to calm her frustration at her inability to put her feelings into words.  Sophie was so good at explaining it when she could just feel something, but that was a skill Parker had never learned.

Eliot glanced over his shoulder at where the two kids stood.  Both of them looked nervous as they took stock of their surroundings.  He couldn’t blame them.  Being stuck on a ship full of strangers with no easy escape route was the very definition of a bad idea.

“Looks a little young to be a Jedi,” Eliot said.  The kid couldn’t possibly be much older than Parker, and she wasn’t even born until after the Jedi fell.  He wasn’t a survivor of Order 66.  “But he’s Force sensitive, that’s for sure.”  Parker and Sophie didn’t need to ask how he could tell.  They both knew he’d been to trained to recognize the Force in others and had developed that skill to the point where he barely had to put in an effort anymore.  He always said Force sensitivity had a very distinctive feel to it.

“We’re gonna meet up with the rest of the their crew,” Parker continued.  “Just hand them off.”

“Do _not_ do that until we’re there,” Nate said.  “We’re coming to you, just stall for now.  And dig into their story, just, you know, don’t make it look like that’s what you’re doing.”  He didn’t sound all that confident that they could do that.  Which was probably fair.

Eliot turned toward the two kids.  “You got a frequency to call your team?” he asked.  The girl blue-haired girl nodded.  Hardison motioned her to the front of the ship so she could make the call.  As she walked to the front of the ship, she shot an uneasy look back at Ezra.

Parker felt Eliot nudge her with his elbow.  She winced.  She was gonna have to talk to the other kid, wasn’t she?  She clenched her teeth and forced herself to at least fake relaxing before she took the couple steps across the small ship to where Ezra stood, wracking her brain for the right thing to say.

“You doing okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said.  “We’re not exactly new at this.”

“Right.”

“I never got your name,” Ezra said.

 _Alice_.  The fake name and life Hardison had constructed for her and Sophie had coached her on was right at the front of her mind, and then…

“Parker,” she said.  She could sense Eliot’s sudden spike of concern and felt his disapproving look.  She looked back at him with a shrug, but on the inside she was kicking herself for giving up her real name.  Still, their aliases were usually for marks, anyway.

“You’re a Jedi, aren’t you?” Parker asked.  Eliot’s sigh was just barely perceptible, but Parker heard it.  So much for subtlety.  Parker knew it wasn’t how Sophie would’ve handled it, but Sophie wasn’t here, and for some reason, she and Nate had thought it was a good idea to leave them on their own.

Ezra hesitated, glancing toward Sabine like he was trying to see what she thought he should say, which was enough of an answer for Parker.

“I knew it!” she said.  “I knew it.”

“What about you?” Ezra asked.  He’d seen her use the Force earlier.  Was it possible that he and Kanan weren’t the last Jedi left?

“Yeah, I’m --”

“Parker,” Eliot said, cutting her off.

“He saw,” Parker said.  She rolled her eyes at the Look Eliot gave her.  Still, part of her thought maybe he was right.

“I mean, sort of,” Parker said.  “I’m still learning.”

Before Eliot could intervene and save Parker from her own questionable impulse control, Hardison interrupted to say “Nate and Sophie incoming.”

Hardison docked Lucille with the small freighter with practiced ease.  The hatch opened, letting them onto the ship.  Sabine and Ezra made to follow the three of them, but Eliot blocked their path.

“You two are staying right here,” he said.  He wasn’t about to let two strangers, even if they were just kids, onto their ship until they’d regrouped and figured out exactly what was going on and what the new plan was.

When Eliot, Parker, and Hardison reached the briefing room, they found Nate and Sophie waiting for them.

“Okay,” Nate said.  “What exactly are we dealing with?”

The three of them glanced at each other, trying to decide who should start talking.  Finally, Eliot did.

“Didn’t figure out much more than we already know,” he said.  “The kids are working with someone else.  Could just be thieves, or there could be a rebel cell based here we don’t know about.”

Four pairs of eyes turned toward Hardison, who rolled his eyes.

“You guys know I’m not a wizard, right?” he said.  “Rebels try and stay under the radar for a good reason.”

“Where exactly are these kids, anyway?” Nate asked, his eyes darting around the room as if just realizing that it was only his team in there.

“Still on _Lucille_ ,” Eliot said.  “Didn’t think letting a couple strangers into the briefing room was a great idea.”

“So you just left them alone,” Nate said flatly.  “Unsupervised.”

Eliot and Hardison glanced at each other.  Parker kept her gaze fixed on the corner she’d been staring into, but she could still feel the silent _oh damn_ that passed between her friends.

“I’ve got it,” Sophie said, standing up and moving toward the door.  “Parker?”  She motioned for the blonde girl to follow her.

“Huh?”  Parker had been listening, but after everything that had happened, she had reached the point where words were getting hard to process.  Her brain kicked in a second later and she realized what Sophie had said and followed the other woman out of the briefing room.

“Are you okay?” Sophie asked once they were out of earshot of the rest of the team.

“Mm-hmm.”

“You just seem…off,” Sophie said.

Parker gave a frustrated little sigh and flapped her hands nervously.  “I just…I don’t like -- I'm used to working alone.  Making decisions for other people, calling the shots like I did, it just doesn’t feel right.”

“You did a good job for what you had to work with.”

“I got us busted, lost the key, and brought two complete strangers into our HQ,” Parker said.  “It was a disaster.”

“It wasn’t a disaster,” Sophie said.  “It was a setback.  We can salvage this.”  Parker narrowed her eyes.  Why did she get the feeling something else was going on and Sophie knew something she didn’t?  She shook her head.  Sophie usually knew things everyone else didn’t.  That wasn’t at all unusual.

They turned the corner to where _Lucille_ was docked and Parker saw that both Sabine and Ezra were still on the shuttle.  They’d clearly been talking, probably working out some kind of contingency plan, because they stopped the second they saw Sophie.  Parker hung back as Sophie approached the two of them.

“We’re on our way to the coordinates your team gave us,” Sophie said, smiling softly to put the two kids at ease.

“Any chance you can loop us in on what’s going on?” Sabine asked, casting a suspicious glare at Sophie.  Now that the crisis mode of their escape had worn off, she was starting to become uneasy about the whole situation.

“We’ll take you back to your crew and we can go our separate ways,” Sophie said.  “This was obviously just a mistake.”

“This is our mission,” Sabine said.  “If anyone’s finishing it, it’s us.”

“We would’ve got it if you two hadn’t gotten yourselves caught,” Parker said.

“Parker,” Sophie said quietly, even as Parker was already reigning her irritation in.  It wasn’t often they crossed paths with other crews on the same job, but when they did, she had a tendency to get territorial, and it was a hard habit to break.

“We have another mission,” Sophie explained.  Her eyes went back and forth between Ezra and Sabine, as if she were putting the pieces of something together in her head.  Sabine took a step to her left, toward Ezra, not exactly hiding him from view, but putting herself between him and any potential danger.

“The agent who was supposed to get the key in the first place,” Sophie said, “we told her sister we’d finish her mission and take down the people who killed her.  If you want to finish the job, I don’t see why we can’t work together on this.”

Nate, who had been listening through the comms, started to protest, and Sophie removed her earbud.  Nate would be able to hear everything through Parker’s, anyway.  Parker narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out exactly what game Sophie was playing.  She didn’t get why Sophie was telling them this.  They didn’t need to know.  But it was Sophie, and she never did anything without some kind of reason for it.

“We don’t know you,” Sabine said.  “How do we know we can trust you?”

“If any of us was going to kill you or double-cross you, it would have happened already,” Sophie said.  “And we don’t do that.”

 _We don’t?_ Parker thought, but knew better than to say out loud.

“Coming up on those coordinates now,” Hardison said through the comms.

“Hardison says we’re there,” Parker told Sophie.

* * *

 

He was trying to keep his voice down, but Parker could still hear Nate ask Sophie “Exactly what con are you running?”

The five of them were standing in a valley where Hardison had landed the ship, hanging back and observing from a distance as Ezra and Sabine explained everything that had happened to a Twilek pilot and a human who were clearly the leaders of their crew.

“I'm not running a con on them,” Sophie whispered back.

“You running one on us?”

Sophie just glanced up at him, then turned her gaze back to the other crew.

“Sophie, you don’t --”

“When I'm running a con on anyone, I’ll tell you,” Sophie said, her irritation at Nate’s assumption clear.

“Will you?” Nate asked.

“Not now, guys,” Eliot muttered as Sophie rounded on Nate, ready to start arguing in earnest.  The pilot was approaching them and the last thing anyone needed was for someone to walk into the middle of one of Nate and Sophie’s arguments.  Sophie turned away from Nate, but not before shooting him a glare that said _we can do this later._

“Just let me handle this,” Sophie said.  Nate was about to argue, but before he could, Sophie stepped forward, an action she knew would establish her as the one who spoke for the group.

“The kids told us what your crew did for them,” the pilot said.  “Just wanted to say thanks.”

“Not at all,” Sophie said.  “We’re glad we could help, Captain --” she left the sentence hanging so the pilot could give her name.

“Hera Syndulla,” the pilot said slowly, her eyes darting around, taking in each member of the team, assessing the situation.

“Sophie Devereaux,” Sophie said.  There was a brief flash of recognition in Hera’s eyes.  No one was surprised.  Sophie had a reputation.

“Since when does Sophie Devereaux hit Imperial targets?” Hera asked.  “Or work with a team?”

“It’s a recent thing,” Sophie said.  “I take it your teammates told you what I said about working together?”

“Sophie,” Nate interrupted.  “Let’s talk for a second.”

Sophie smiled to herself as she followed Nate around the side of the ship.  Honestly, she was amazed he’d kept himself together that long.

“You want to tell me what you're doing?” he asked once they were far enough away to keep anyone from overhearing them.

“You want to just trust me for once?” Sophie retorted, crossing her arms.

“Not really,” Nate said.  Sophie had to resist the urge to sigh out loud.  Of course, Nate was still clinging to the idea that he was just a little morally superior to the rest of them.  Normally, it didn’t bother her.  If that’s what it took to get him through the day, fine.  But this time, it did.  She had a job to do.

“Look, Nate,” she said, not letting her annoyance creep into her voice, “if we’re going to be running jobs on this planet, it would help if we were on good terms with the locals for a change.  Shutting them out of one of their own jobs doesn’t sound like the way to do that.”

“You know I can tell you’re using your mark voice, right?” Nate said.  Sophie said nothing, only glared at him.  Nate sighed.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

“Of course you don’t,” Sophie said.

“Just promise me you’ll clue me in on whatever game you’re playing,” Nate said.

“Don’t I always?” Sophie asked, smiling now that Nate was starting to soften.

“First sign of trouble, we cut them out,” Nate said.

“Of course.”

“And that’s assuming they’ll even agree to work with us in the first place,” Nate pointed out.  So far, it was only an idea.

“They will,” Sophie said.  “I have a good feeling about this.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for canon-typical violence, mention of death, and a character thinking dehumanizing thoughts about himself

Eliot had a bad feeling about this.

When Nate and Hera had briefed their combined teams on the plan, it had seemed like yet another one of Nate’s schemes that seemed impossible but was just crazy enough to work.  And Eliot had trusted that, had trusted _Nate_ , because trusting him usually worked out.  Usually.  But still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was gonna go wrong.  It was like something crawling under his skin, twisting around inside him.  Not fear, not anxiety, just certainty that something wasn’t right and frustration that he didn’t know what.

But they couldn’t overrule one of Nate’s plans based on a feeling, or else they’d never get anything done.

So now Eliot had to wait, hidden behind an almost-too-convenient stand of boulders about a click south of the Imperial complex.  He, Sabine, and a Lasat he’d learned was named Zeb were supposed to cover the inside team’s escape if they needed it, and Eliot had the feeling they would.

Eliot’s hand twitched near his side, but he stopped himself.  Running his finger across the sharp edge of his lightsaber was a stim he rarely used anymore, but now that he was carrying it again, he almost fell back into the habit.  But he didn’t want the others to know he had it on him, so he settled for tapping his fingers against the rock.

Eliot didn’t need a weapon to win a fight.  He _was_ a weapon.  But as the rest of the team had geared up for the mission, he’d gone to his room and retrieved the lightsaber from its hiding place.  It had been an impulse, but one he knew he had to trust.

Sophie was the only one who knew he had the saber on him, and hadn’t said anything beyond _“It’s been a while since I've seen that.”_   But that comment still managed to hold a silent _are you sure?_ and _be careful_.  She knew as well as he did how risky it was to carry the thing, let alone use it.  But something was going to go wrong, and he knew it would come in handy.

Eliot definitely had a bad feeling about this.

* * *

 

Stage one of the plan, getting inside the building, had gone off without a hitch.  It was once they were in that things started to go wrong, even before any of them had realized it.

Once they were in, all Parker and Hardison had to do was get to the backup servers on the lower level, copy the data, and erase all trace of their presence while Kanan and Ezra, in their stolen Stormtrooper armor, held their exit route.  Easy.

Or it _should_ have been easy.

The first indication that something had gone wrong was when Parker and Hardison reached a bank of elevators and the security pass Parker had managed to lift, which should have gotten them into any restricted areas, didn’t work.  Parker winced at the harsh _beep_ as she held the small plastic card up to the panel next to the door a second time.

“Hang on,” she said.  “I have an idea.”

“I'm gonna hate this, aren’t I?” Hardison asked.

“Probably.”  Parker closed her eyes and held out her hand.  She reached out, feeling the mechanisms that controlled the lock and the electricity that hummed through the wiring.  The doors directly in front of her slid open, revealing a dark, empty elevator shaft.  Parker and Hardison leaned over the edge, gazing down into the abyss.

“Ready?” Parker asked.

“Mm-mm,” Hardison said, shaking his head.  “No way.”

“It’ll be fine,” Parker said.  With that, she leapt from the ledge and let herself fall into the darkness.  As she fell past the door to the next level down, she reached out and grabbed the ledge.  For a second, she just let herself hang there, her weight supported entirely on the tips of her fingers.  She pushed with her mind, the door slid open, and Parker pulled herself up out of the shaft.

“Okay, Hardison,” she said.  “Your turn.”

“No way, man,” Hardison said.  “I’ll find a way to reactivate the lift and --”

“No time!” Parker said.  “Just jump.  I’ll catch you.”  Part of her wished she could be in two places at once so she could just push him down the shaft.  It was so much easier that way.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Hardison muttered.  Parker could practically see him bouncing up and down, trying to psych himself up.

“Just jump!” she hissed.

Hardison took a deep breath before jumping off the edge.

Parker threw out her hand, focusing every ounce of strength she had on keeping him up, hold him up, don’t let him fall, keep him up, keep him up, keep him up.

It was hard.  Hardison wasn’t a big guy like Eliot or Nate, but he was still heavy, and he _squirmed_ because he was afraid of falling.

As Hardison fell, slowed by Parker’s use of the Force, Parker pulled him toward her.  She caught his arm and hauled him onto the solid metal floor.

“See?” she said.  “Not so bad.”

“Speak for yourself,” Hardison said.  He brushed past her and led the way down the hall toward the room that housed the backup servers.  They were rarely used, but they were a much easier target than the main servers, and they’d get Hardison the access he needed.

Parker ran after him until she was right beside him.  As they rounded the corner, Parker stopped short.  Something wasn’t right.  Even if they were just the backup servers, there should have been at least one guard on this door.  But the corridor was empty.

“Bad feeling,” Parker muttered.

 _“What’s wrong?”_ Sophie asked.

“There’s no guard,” Parker said.

 _“Isn’t that a good thing?”_   That was Ezra’s voice.  Even knowing Hardison had linked up their comms on the same frequency, Parker still jumped a little hearing the voice of someone not from her crew in her ear.

“Maybe not,” she said.  Even as she kept moving toward the door, Parker could feel something was off.

 _“Say the word and I'm in there,”_ Eliot said.  Parker could practically feel him standing in that way he did when he was ready to run into a fight, solid and steady, but still somehow light, ready to move at a moment’s notice.

 _“Is there anyone inside the room?”_ Sophie asked.  Parker stopped in her tracks, closed her eyes, and reached out through the Force, feeling into the room on the other side of the wall.

“No,” she said once she was mostly sure.

 _“Then go,”_ Nate told her.  _“Eliot, hold off.”_

Parked nodded, even though Nate couldn’t see her, her picks in her hand almost before she even realized she was reaching for them.  The lock was electronic, but had an emergency manual override, usually only used in the event of a power outage.  It wasn’t an easy lock to break, but she cracked it in less than two minutes.  It might have been faster if Hardison hadn’t been bouncing up and down on his toes behind her muttering “c’mon, c’mon” as he glanced back and forth down the hallway.

The lock clicked and the door slid open.  Lights flickered on as they entered and Parker winced at the sound.

“We’re in,” she whispered, not quite sure why she was keeping her voice down when there was nobody around to hear her.  “Hardison, you’re up.”

Hardison headed for one of the computer terminals and got to work while Parker paced by the door, her movement working the anxiety out of her system.  Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t figure out what.

She got some indication when she heard the lock click.

“Oh no,” she muttered as she tried to open the door.  It wouldn’t budge.  Hardison looked back at her and she shook her head.

“Keep going,” she said.  “I've got this.”  He nodded and turned back to the terminal.  Parker briefly considered just opening the door with the Force, but she had to test her hunch first.  She stuck her picks into the lock and jumped back as a tiny electrical current shot through the thin strips of metal, just enough to hurt.  Anti-theft device, remote activated.  Her hunch had been right.  Someone knew they were here.

“Okay, now we have a problem,” Parker said.  It wouldn’t be hard for her to get around the lock, especially considering she’d been taught to work through the pain of electric anti-theft locks, but this hallway could be crawling with Stormtroopers any second now.

 _“What’s going on?”_ Nate asked.  Parker quickly rushed out an explanation, gesturing towards Hardison to keep working as he shot her yet another worried look.

She could practically feel the gears spinning in Nate’s head, the anxiety radiating off of Hardison and Sophie, and a sinking feeling from Eliot, like -- _like he knew this was going to happen?_

 _“Eliot, don’t,”_ Nate said.  Even without the ability to sense Eliot’s feelings through the Force, Nate knew exactly where Eliot’s head was.  _“They’re gonna need cover on the way out.”_

Parker could feel multiple people -- Stormtroopers, almost for sure -- heading toward them.  She quickly conveyed this information to the others and could have sworn he heard Eliot growl in response.

“Please tell me you’re almost done,” she said to Hardison.  The hacker shook his head.

“I need more time,” he said.

“We don’t really have any,” Parker told him.

 _“The plan’s blown, Nate,”_ Eliot said.  _“We should go in and get them out **now**.”_

 _“We’re closer,”_ Kanan said.  _“We’ll go in, help them fight their way out if we have to.”_

 _“I’ll go.”_ That was Ezra again.  _“I’ll help them, you just keep our exit clear.”_

 _“Ezra --”_ Kanan sighed, and Parker guessed Ezra had probably already taken off.

 _“Not great at following the plan, is he?”_ Nate asked.

_“I can still hear you, you know.”_

Parker ignored the sound of her teammates and allies in her ear as she turned back to the door, ready to get it unlocked so they could make a quick escape.  Before she could, the door opened, revealing four Troopers that she could see, though there were probably others in the hallway.

Parked gave a hard mental _shove_ and sent one Trooper stumbling backwards, taking one of the others down with him as he fell.  The Stormtrooper closest to her raised his blaster and Parker leapt forward, doing just what Eliot had taught her, grabbing the soldier’s blaster with one hand and pushing it aside while punching with the other.

Unfortunately, the technique Eliot had shown her worked best on an opponent that _wasn’t_ covered head-to-toe in armor.  Her attack had surprised him just enough that she was able to wrench the blaster out of his hand, drop it to the ground, and kick it out of his reach, but she hadn’t really hurt him.  He swung at her and she managed to dodge his first punch, but not the second, which hit her stomach and sent her stumbling backwards.  She was about to throw herself into a counterattack when she heard a voice yell “freeze” and suddenly felt at least three pairs of eyes on her.

She looked up to see three Stormtroopers standing just inside the room, blocking the door, their blasters raised, all pointing at her.  While she’d been distracted fighting one Trooper, another had tackled Hardison, who was now pinned to the floor, his hands being cuffed behind his back.  Parker’s eyes darted around the room, looking for a way out.  There was an air vent almost directly above her, but is she took that route, they’d probably shoot right through the ceiling at her.  Assuming she survived that, she’d still be leaving Hardison behind, which she couldn’t -- _wouldn’t_ \-- do.  Not while there was still a chance of them escaping together.  Not to mention Ezra was on his way.  She barely knew him, but didn’t like his chances against this many Troopers with a handcuffed Hardison and Kanan, an unknown element, for backup.

As if Ezra had been summoned by her thoughts, she heard blaster fire in the hallway.  One of the Troopers in front of her turned instinctively to look over their shoulder and Parker had to hold herself back from attacking while Hardison was still in danger.

There was a shout from the hallway, a dull _thud_ of someone falling to the ground, and the sound of blasters died down.

“He’s down,” she heard someone say.

 _Shit,_ she thought.  _Oh, shit._   She frantically reached out with her mind, trying to figure out if Ezra was alive or dead.  He wasn’t familiar to her, not like her teammates, so she really couldn’t be sure, but she thought she felt him.  Probably not dead, just stunned.

Even if Kanan knew what had happened, he wouldn’t be able to get to them fast enough, which left Parker the only one standing right now.  She spotted the blaster she’d pulled from the Stormtrooper’s hand in her peripheral vision.  She’d only ever shot a blaster twice before in her life, but it was all she had.  She reached out with her mind and pulled the weapon toward her.  It had only covered half the distance when another shot was fired.

Parker saw a flash of blue and felt like something heavy had slammed into her as her vision blurred and then everything went dark.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for injury to a child, canon-typical violence, and mentions of death

“Parker?” Eliot called into the comms.  “Parker?!  Hardison?!”

There was no response.

 _“They got all three of them,”_ Kanan said.  Eliot didn’t ask how he knew.  _“I'm going in.”_

“So am I,” Eliot said.  “Wait for me.  I’ll back you up.”

_“Eliot --”_

“Nate!” Eliot growled, daring the older man to finish the sentence.  Nate might be the criminal mastermind, but when the plan went to hell and their team needed rescuing, that was Eliot’s job.

 _“I was gonna say bring them home,”_ Nate said.

Eliot turned to Sabine and Zeb.  “You two stay here.  We’re gonna need cover on our way out.”  He took off before either of them could even think to argue.

It took Eliot just over three minutes to cover the kilometer between them and the outside wall.  He stayed pressed against the wall as he moved, just inside the blind spot of any patrols.  One good _pull_ with the Force to the lock on a gate got him through.  It wasn’t like the Imperials didn’t already know they were here.

“I'm in,” he muttered, ducking into the shadow cast by the leg of a walker.

 _“Entrance in the southeast corner is clear,”_ Kanan said.  Eliot was almost surprised the Jedi had actually waited for him.  Eliot could see the door Kanan had indicated from his hiding spot.  He could also see two Stormtroopers heading right for it, probably to secure it.

Eliot reached out through the Force, grabbing hold of both Troopers and slamming them forward against the building.  He felt more than heard a satisfying _crack_ and briefly wondered if he’d fractured their skulls without really meaning to.  Stormtrooper armor was notoriously weak.  But that didn’t matter right now.

He bolted from his hiding place toward the door and threw it open, only to see another Stormtrooper.  Eliot pulled his lightsaber from where he’d concealed it, but before he could activate it, the Trooper removed his helmet and Eliot saw that it was only Kanan.  Eliot stopped in his tracks.

“Wasn’t sure you’d actually hold off,” he said.

“Almost didn’t,” Kanan told him.  His gaze shifted to the weapon in Eliot’s hand.

“Detention cells are gonna be on one of the sublevels,” Eliot said, diverting Kanan’s question before it was asked.  He started moving down the hallway and Kanan followed.  “They’re gonna keep them separate till they’ve all been processed and --”

He cut off his sentence and stopped short as he felt something in the air _shift_.  It was cold.  The kind of cold that felt alive somehow.

“Kanan,” he said, turning back to face the other man.  From the look on Kanan’s face, Eliot could tell he’d felt the same thing.  “Does the Empire know about Ezra?”

Kanan nodded.

“Dammit,” Eliot muttered.  “Forget being subtle, we have to get all of them out _now_.”  He shifted his focus, talking to his teammate instead.  “Sophie, he’s here.”

 _“Are you sure?”_ she asked.

“Yeah,” Eliot said.  There was a brief silence and he could practically feel Sophie’s protective instincts screaming at her to go in after him, even though she knew she wouldn’t get there in time.

“I’ll get them out, Sophie,” Eliot said.  “They'll be alright.”

 _“I'm not just worried about them,”_ Sophie said.  _“Be careful.”_

“When am I not?”  Sophie chose not to answer.  Eliot shifted his attention back to Kanan.

“Let’s go,” he said.  “If they know Ezra’s a Jedi they can figure out Parker’s one, too.”

“And that could lead them right back to you,” Kanan said as the two of them raced down the hallway.

“Not me,” Eliot said, pushing open a door that led to a flight of stairs.  No one in these places ever used the stairs.  Their way would be clear.

“Isn’t she your padawan?” Kanan asked.  Eliot shook his head.

“Sophie’s,” he said.  Kanan took the revelation that Sophie was a Jedi without comment, which Eliot was grateful for.  Right now, they both had to focus on finding the kids and getting them out before that dark, cold presence they’d both felt got anywhere near Ezra or Parker.

He felt knots forming in his chest at the thought of would could happen if they couldn’t rescue their teammates.  Hardison wasn’t Force sensitive, so he, at least, would go to prison, and prisons could be broken out of.  But what the Inquisitors and the Sith Lord who commanded them did to Force sensitive kids, there was just no coming back from that.

* * *

 

When Parker woke, she was alone in a cell.  It was dark, which was actually helpful to her, though it had probably been intended to scare her.  Harsh lights were painful and distracting.  She sat up, shaking off the grogginess from the stun blast she’d been hit with, and began to run through her contingencies in her head.  She’d come up with several for just this scenario and others like it, knowing that if she got captured, that was it.  She couldn’t count on backup or a rescue, so she’d had to plan how to rescue herself.

Plan A, as usual, was the air ducts.  She looked around, her eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness, and spotted a vent up the wall across from the door, close to the ceiling.  It would be a tight fit, but she could make it.

She reached out with the Force, pulling the grate from the vent and catching it before it crashed to the ground.  But just as she was about to pull herself up the wall and into the vent, the door slid open behind her and two Stormtroopers entered the cell.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” one of them said.  Parker could feel his blaster pointing at her back.  She hung there for a second, debating the risk of just pulling herself into the vent and crawling away as fast as she could.  But they could easily shoot into the vent.

Parker dropped to the ground and turned around to face the Stormtroopers.  The door had shut behind them, meaning Parker couldn’t just make a break for it and try to push past them.

“Good,” the other Trooper, the one who wasn’t pointed a blaster at her, said.  “Now, this’ll go a lot easier for you if you just tell us what you and your partners were doing here.”

Parker shook her head.  She might not be counting on her teammates to get her out of here, but she wasn’t about to compromise the job.

“Listen, kid,” the Trooper said, taking a step forward.  She stopped.  Parker couldn’t tell exactly where she was looking because of her helmet, but it at least _seemed_ like she was looking at the grate that had been covering the vent.  She turned to look at the other Stormtrooper.

“Watch her,” she said before turning and leaving the cell.  Parker felt a sudden spike of anxiety, wondering if the Stormtrooper had somehow figured out how she’d opened the vent.

But she wouldn’t have to worry about that if she could escape.  It was time for a new plan.  She glared at the Stormtrooper who stood there, watching her.  She’d seen Eliot do this once.  She hoped she could figure it out.  She needed to if she was gonna get out of here.

She felt it work before she heard the quiet gasp of the Stormtrooper as he realized he couldn’t breathe.  Parker gritted her teeth as she tried to keep the pressure around the soldier’s throat, just enough to knock him out, without going too far and killing him.

Parker thought she heard something out in the hallway, but she was too focused on what she was doing to pay much attention.  She jumped when the door opened and the Stormtrooper was wrenched out of her grip and slammed to the floor.  She blinked as light flooded into the cell and saw --

“Eliot?”  Her hands fluttered at her side at the sight of her teammate.  She hadn’t expected him to come after her, but she was still happy to see him.

Eliot kicked the Stormtrooper squarely in the back of the head, rendering him unconscious.

“C’mon, kid,” he said.  “Still gotta find the others.”

Parker followed him into the hallway, where she saw Kanan leading Ezra out of another cell not far away.  He had a bruise just under his eye and a cut on the side of his head.  Parker saw Eliot’s mouth press into a line and saw -- or more like felt -- something dark flash in his eyes.

“Let’s get Hardison and go,” Eliot said.  Tone was pretty much a mystery to Parker, but there was something in Eliot’s voice that made her uneasy.  “He’s down this way.”

Parker, Ezra, and Kanan started to follow Eliot down the hall but they all stopped short after only a few feet, as though frozen in place.  That icy cold feeling Parker had been ignoring since she woke up had intensified, like the cold was somehow alive and radiating toward them.  Even she could tell from the looks on their faces that the others felt it, too.

They turned, almost in unison, to see a tall Pau’an approaching them, a lightsaber in his hand.  He almost seemed surprised as his yellow eyes rested on Eliot.

“So,” he said.  “You _did_ survive.”

“You’re damn right I did,” Eliot said, his voice a low, angry growl.

Eliot stepped forward, putting himself between his teammates and the Inquisitor.  For the first time in years, Eliot activated his lightsaber, the blade’s red glow cutting through the harsh white light that filled the hallway.  He glanced over his shoulder.

“Get Hardison and go,” he said, directing the order mostly at Parker, who was the only one of the three without a stunned look on her face.

“Eliot --” she started to say.

“Go,” he repeated.  “I’ve got this.”

He felt the attack coming and deflected it just in time.  He pushed through the Force and the Pau’an was thrown backward, but caught himself on the wall.  Eliot rushed him, his saber raised, aiming for the Inquisitor’s throat.  The Inquisitor blocked Eliot’s lightsaber with his own, grabbing Eliot’s wrist and slamming him into the wall.  Eliot glanced to the side and saw Parker grabbing Hardison’s hand and half-leading, half-dragging him down the hall, away from Eliot.

“You know you can’t beat me,” the Inquisitor said, sounding almost bored, like Eliot wasn’t worth his time.

“Don’t have to,” Eliot growled.  He slammed his heel into the other man’s kneecap and slashed out with his lightsaber, forcing the Inquisitor to take a step back to avoid it.  Eliot dodged to the side and into one of the cells.  Once the door was shut behind him, he slashed at the wall next to it, destroying the mechanism that would open it again, sealing himself inside.  It wouldn’t buy him that much time, but it would be just enough.

Eliot reached up, pushing his lightsaber up through the ceiling, cutting a hole big enough for him to pull himself through.  He switched his lightsaber off and jumped, finding himself in a hallway where four Stormtroopers were caught off guard.  He incapacitated one of them easily by grabbing their helmet and slamming their head against the wall.  The others opened fire.  Eliot activated his saber again and deflected the blaster bolts.  One of the Stormtroopers fell, killed by their own fire.  Eliot threw one hand out and sent the other two flying down the hallway.  By the time they got their feet back under them, Eliot had taken off, found the doorway to the stairwell, and had already run up half a flight of stairs.

* * *

 

As they raced down a hallway on the ground level, near the door they’d entered the building through in the first place, Parker stopped, pulled back by Hardison, whose hand was still clutched in hers.  He’d stopped moving and turned back, looking around.  Probably for Eliot.

“Hardison, come on,” Parker said.  “We’ve got to move.”

“Eliot’s still down there,” Hardison said.

“I know,” Parker said, tugging on her friend’s arm.  “But he told us to get you out and go.”

Hardison hesitated.

“It’s Eliot,” she said.  “He’ll be okay.”

She saw Hardison’s jaw clench before he turned back around and followed her down the hall.

“Sabine, Zeb!” Kanan was saying as they caught up to him.  “Get the _Phantom_ in the air.  I'm changing the plan.  We’ll meet you on the roof.”

_“Are you completely --”_

“Just do it!”

 _“On it!”_ Zeb said.  _“We’re on our way to you.”_

Kanan opened a door that led to a stairwell, one with access to the roof.

“Come on,” he said.  “Ground level entrances will be locked down by now.”  As the four of them rushed through the door, Parker felt movement to her left.  She looked over and saw Eliot, running up the stairs from the floor below.  He nearly slammed into Hardison, who’s eyes grew wide at the sight of his friend.

“Don’t scare us like that, man!” Hardison said, punching Eliot’s arm.

“Guys, run now, reunion later,” Parker said.

The five of them had to walk a fine line between moving fast and pacing themselves as they ran up the six flights of stairs to the roof.  Hardison, Eliot, and Ezra were all breathing heavily when they finally made it, with Hardison slumping a little against the wall.  Parker winced at how winded he looked.  Hardison was not built for this.

Ezra pushed the door at the top of the stairs open a couple inches and looked out.

“Three Stormtroopers that I can see,” he said.  “Might be more.”

“At least five,” Eliot said.  His eyes were shut as he cast out his mental net, feeling for the presence of other Troopers nearby.

“Let’s move,” Kanan said.

Ezra threw the door open and led the charge onto the rooftop.  As the Stormtroopers turned toward them, raising their blasters, Kanan and Eliot leapt forward, drawing their lightsabers and deflecting the Troopers’ fire back at them.  Ezra looked like he was about to jump in and help, but Kanan motioned for him to stay back.

Parker felt something change in the air and seconds later, the soft roar of an engine drowned out the sound of blaster fire.  The _Phantom_ hovered just off the edge of the building.  The ramp lowered to reveal Zeb, who took one look at the scene in front of him and drew his blaster to lay down cover fire.

“Go!” she just barely heard Eliot and Kanan shout, almost at the same time.  The three teenagers ran toward the ship.  Parker made Hardison go first before she and Ezra followed.

“I’ve got you two covered,” Zeb said to Kanan and Eliot through their comms.  “Just get moving.”

Kanan was next on the ship, followed closely by Eliot.

“That’s everyone,” Parker said once the two men were safely on board.  The hatch closed and the _Phantom_ took off, only jolting once as blaster fire hit the hull.

A wave of relief swept through the ship as each of the seven of them realized they were out of immediate danger.

“That,” Eliot said, “was too damn close.”  Parker gave a soft hum of agreement, grabbing Hardison’s hand as she leaned her head against his shoulder.  That’s when she saw Kanan watching Eliot, a suspicious and wary look in his eye.

“You know he probably saved your life, right?” she asked, too emotionally drained to hide her annoyance and hostility.

“Parker,” Eliot said.  She glanced over at him, softened a bit, and decided to drop it.  It was only then that she realized that by getting defensive, she’d probably confirmed Kanan’s suspicions about Eliot.

Kanan shook his head.  “She’s right,” he said.  “You saved us and we’re grateful for that.”  Eliot and Parker both caught the implied _but that doesn’t mean I trust you_ under his words.

“Nate, we’re clear,” Eliot said, as much to change the subject as to actually inform the others of the situation.  “But we lost the key.  Again.”

“Well…” Hardison said.

Parker looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

“Yeah,” he said.

* * *

 

_“Keep going,” Parker said.  “I've got this.”_

_Hardison nodded and turned back to the computer terminal.  He hesitated for a second.  He may not be a Jedi, but he sure as hell had a bad feeling about this.  He reached into his pocket and pulled something out.  To anyone else, it would look like a small strip of metal, probably scrap.  But to Alec Hardison, it was plan…whichever letter came after whatever plan they were on.  He just hoped it wasn’t Plan M._

* * *

 

“Thought you said that thing didn’t work,” Eliot said.

“I said it was experimental,” Hardison corrected him, smiling.  “Let’s consider this a field test.”

“Someone want to fill us in?” Sabine asked.

“I call it a worm droid,” Hardison explained.  “I left it in the server room.  It looks like scrap metal and it’s powered down, so it won't show up on any scans for foreign tech.  Once we get back to the ship, I can activate it, it’ll plug into the terminal and do whatever it is I programmed it to do, which in this case is steal the skeleton key.”

“Assuming it works,” Eliot said.

“Assuming that, yeah,” Hardison echoed.

* * *

 

Hardison sat in front of a screen in the briefing room, his hands flying across the keys in front of him.  The worm droid was activated by a complex set of commands, designed that way so it couldn’t be accidentally woken up by anyone but him.  It was the kind of thing that required focus, and the fact that, with the addition of the _Ghost_ crew, he now had to listen to _three_ people pacing around nervously instead of just one, was not helping.

Finally, he’d keyed in the final code and slumped back in his chair.

“It worked?” Nate asked expectantly.

“It worked,” Hardison said.  “It’ll send us the skeleton key in an encrypted transmission and destroy any sign that it was copied or sent anywhere.  Plus it’ll leave a nasty surprise for that ISB agent who killed our client’s sister.”

“What kind of surprise?” Parker asked, a little too excited at the prospect of damage being done.

“Just a little trail of evidence linking him to the release of classified information to rebel sympathizers,” Hardison said with a smile.  Nate looked like he was about to say something, but Hardison cut him off.  “Don’t worry.  Nothing the Empire doesn’t already know is compromised.”

“Isn’t that -- I don’t know,” Ezra said.  “That guy’s gonna be killed or go to an Imperial prison for that.  Isn’t that a little…”

“Shady?” Sabine finished for him.  Ezra nodded in agreement with her word choice.

“He used that system to hurt someone,” Nate said, “so we use it to hurt him right back.”  He shrugged off the looks on their faces that told him they weren’t satisfied with his answer.  “What?  We never claimed to be the good guys here.”

* * *

 

The worm droid took longer than Hardison had predicted to fulfil its objective, but in less than an hour, Sophie was handing Hera a drive with the skeleton key on it.  Hera hadn’t told Sophie the next step, which was for Hera to hand it off to Fulcrum, but Sophie didn’t need to know that.

“I guess it all worked out in the end,” Hera said.

“I guess it did,” Sophie said.  “There _is_ one thing that’s still bothering me, though.  Why did Fulcrum send you?”

Hera looked up, surprised at the mention of her contact.  The two of them locked eyes for a moment, a silent understanding passing between them.

“She didn’t,” Hera said.  “Actually, she told me we should stay away from this one.  And I think I get why now.”

A smile, barely-noticeable smile crossed Sophie’s lips.

“She thought we’d be perfect for the job,” Sophie said.  “She also thought my team needed a little push.”

“Let me guess,” Hera said.  “Your friend Nate’s just as stubborn as Kanan?”

Sophie laughed.  “However bad Kanan is, I can guarantee you Nate is worse.”

“Let’s do this again some time,” Hera said.

“If you ever need backup, call us,” Sophie said.  “I have a feeling we might be sticking around for a while.”

She extended a hand and Hera took it, shaking it to seal their newfound alliance.

“Better let Fulcrum know we have this,” Hera said, holding up the drive.  She turned and walked away, leaving their ship for her own.

“So,” Nate said, walking up to Sophie and leaning against the wall next to her.  “This is what you were up to.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sophie said with a smile.

“You could’ve told me,” Nate said.

“Would you have gone along with it?” Sophie asked.  Nate said nothing, but she felt his stance shift to indicate his discomfort with the question.  She looked up at his face.  “I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I'm sorry, Nate,” she said.  “This was bigger than all of us.”

“We’re really in it now, aren’t we?” he asked.  He didn’t actually sigh, but Sophie could hear it held back just behind his words.

“We are,” Sophie said.  “A gang of criminals fighting the Empire.”

For once, Nate didn’t protest being called a criminal.  If a group of thieves could help take down the Empire, he could learn to be okay with being called a thief.


End file.
